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Well, reading the posts, I decided to start one for hunters. Of course, Adonfanna is the only PC I have to date, now level 20, and rocking along.

Love the class...nothing bad to say...

My routine with my sole pet, a tiger is as follows (and I see a lot misuse the pet in my opinion)

Set down a fire trap just out of arrow range
creep forward to ensure you only get one mob
fire concussion to slow down
pull back to trap - fire poison
fire main arrow / click on pet attack
fire split arrow or poison as needed
Mob is on you by the 3rd/4th arrow
Wing the bastard
melee/wing with the beast ripping from behind.

Easy to solo up to 3 levels above...4 levels will require some rest...can usually do up to 2 three levels higher and survive if I'm lucky.

I don't send the pet out till the mob is close...allows me to wing the creature AND keeps the pet from pulling other downrange mobs.

Love the class...and works great in groups with the beast helping out priests, and range being a killer option with arrows. No massive damage...on a crit, will hit 104 or something...but I can work it well.

What else have you all found?

"Apparently the authors of the 2a forgot to mention that it's difficult to defend your freedom when you're so fat you need an electric scooter to propel you around the gun show.. "

I like my bear, Good armor and HP (best tanking pet), will eat anything, and can learn all the different attacks. They may be a bit boring but I''m OK with that.

I hit lvl 36 yesterday and with some of the new skills and talents I have been aquiring, combat seems to be getting easier. I can solo mobs my level without taking much more than a scratch on myself or my pet. Last night, I was doing the hunter quests in STV and was soloing lvl 41 raptors (5 levels higher) without too much problem.

I hit lvl 36 yesterday and with some of the new skills and talents I have been aquiring, combat seems to be getting easier. I can solo mobs my level without taking much more than a scratch on myself or my pet. Last night, I was doing the hunter quests in STV and was soloing lvl 41 raptors (5 levels higher) without too much problem.

nerf!!

Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarterDelivering Truth while the 10% deliver lies.

Are you sure you aren''t out of ammo?
Not trying to insult you, but thats the only real case I can make for seeing what your seeing.
Make sure there is ammo in your ammo slot on the sheet, I''ve noticed when I switch ammo it won''t automatically use it.

Are you sure you aren''t out of ammo?
Not trying to insult you, but thats the only real case I can make for seeing what your seeing.
Make sure there is ammo in your ammo slot on the sheet, I''ve noticed when I switch ammo it won''t automatically use it.

That''s the problem. I switched to a gun for the first time, but didn''t take out my arrows. Must have done that at the same time I switched to dual wield. Thanks.

“While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.” - Justice John Paul Stevens

So far for pets...just the cat and raptor...I tend to prefer the cat...eats more varied foods, and seems to just be more survivable for some reason...

BTW...freeze trap rocks...the one that lays down the frost field...don''t know how much it really messes with the opponents...but damn I like it...and fire trap...I''ve improved it to hold the enemies a fare amount of the time.
My new instance tactics...for one pull, concussion arrow to pull him through my fire trap...for multiples, 3 arrows to pull into the frost field trap, sending pet to meet them.

AND...don''t discount a hunter in close combat...I''ve put aside arrows (I lay a trap, fire 3 special shots) then pull out my 2H sword to do 100-200 damage per hit...just so much FUN!!!

Now level 30...and can''t seem to get away from this game... (sleep is soooooo overrated...)

"Apparently the authors of the 2a forgot to mention that it's difficult to defend your freedom when you're so fat you need an electric scooter to propel you around the gun show.. "

I hit level 20 the other night, went out and got my cat to 20 as well. Ran to the pet trainer and trained Level 3 taunt for my pet. Now I cannot find it, it does not seem to be on my skill bars, it is not on the pet''s skill bars. Have I done something wrong. I tried to see if it is re-trainable, but it is no longer availale for training.

Anotehr question I thought I had read somewhere that there were specific pet trainers for different types of pets (i.e. cat trainer, pig trainer etc). Is this true?

Anotehr question I thought I had read somewhere that there were specific pet trainers for different types of pets (i.e. cat trainer, pig trainer etc). Is this true?

Was in the beta at some point. I found a site that listed all the skills specific for each animal.
I imagine they took it out and simplified it for balance reasons and what not.
But it did look pretty interesting and would add a lot to the class, so hopefully they put something like it back in at some point.

I hit level 20 the other night, went out and got my cat to 20 as well. Ran to the pet trainer and trained Level 3 taunt for my pet. Now I cannot find it, it does not seem to be on my skill bars, it is not on the pet''s skill bars. Have I done something wrong. I tried to see if it is re-trainable, but it is no longer availale for training.

Anotehr question I thought I had read somewhere that there were specific pet trainers for different types of pets (i.e. cat trainer, pig trainer etc). Is this true?

When you buy a pet skill, you still need to train your pet in it. You have a skill called train pet or something similar to that in your skill book. Use that and you can select the taunt lvl 3 and train him. Hope that answers your question.

How do you learn something off a pet? Do you have to tame a snow leopard/ bear/boar/strigid first?

Yep, tame it and fight with it a while. The skill will show up. You need to know the right animals/levels to learn certain things. I learned Bite Level 2 from Loch Modan Crockolisks and taught it to my bear. The WoW profession forums have lists of where to find the right beasts for each skill.

I''m level 23 right now and I love being a hunter. They''re great for raids, stand back and pick your opportunity!

Aimed Shot is acquired through the Marksmanship Talents. I picked it up and wasn''t that impressed with it at first since it seemed to miss a lot. Now that I''ve got my agility over 200 though, I use Aimed Shot rank 3 as my opening shot every time. I usually hit for 200 damage but I have critical hit with it and done 600 damage with a single arrow. It''s very, very nice. Just send the pet in to tank and while he''s running in, click Aimed Shot to start the 3 second aiming animation. You should be firing right when the pet gets the agro.

Most of you probably do not know me. I have two characters, Vilhelm the Paladin (lvl 28 currently), and my Hunter Tyne (currently lvl 44). I''ve played another Hunter on Archimonde server, but switched after getting tired of all the ganking on PvP servers. Anyway, I read most of the posts, but I probably am going to repeat some stuff.

Pets

For starters, most pets are pretty similar. As someone pointed out, some are more for damage, while others are better for tanking, but in general, they aren''t that different. Personally I would recommend a DPS pet over a tank pet. The extra damage will help your pet hold aggro better, and if you do manage to pull aggro off your pet, the pet will help you a lot more, while if it was a tanking pet, his armor would be doing you no good. Also, sometimes you don''t want your pet to tank. Sure, lvl 1-40 pet''s make great tanks, but once other classes start getting plate, you won''t want to use your pet as a main tank anymore. It will still be good for taking an extra add that runs after a caster, but in general, when I group I turn on cower, and let the warrior/paladin take the hits.

I know I said most pets are pretty similar, but there are some rare exceptions. Currently, at lvl 42 you can tame Snarler, a named wolf in Feralas. He has 100 in all resistances. I''ve been using him for a couple of levels now, and the resistances help out. They don''t turn him into some anti-mage god, but they are better then nothing. King Bangalash is another nice pet, and is a LOT easier to get then Snarler (Snarler is on an 8 hour timer). He''s the elite at the end of the Hunters Camp quests in STV. He doesn''t have any resistances, but he runs faster then a mount. I''ve really enjoyed his increased movement speed when I sic him on some unsuspecting mob. He''s also matches my mount, being a white tiger with black stripes. Unfortunately there is a pet run speed bug, which can quickly negate Bangalashs strong point. Hopefully Blizzard will fix this soon.

Another thing to look at is your pets attack speed. Some pets attack extremely fast, while most have the default 2.0 attack speed. This is something you might be interested in if you want a pet that is great for interrupting casters. Personally, this isn''t a huge consideration of mine, but some of you might be interested in it. Someone has started a list here:

When taming a new pet, always turn on Aspect of the Monkey. Based on my experience, I have never seen myself dodge while taming, even with this on, but it''s better to be safe then sorry. Also, lay a freezing trap. This will not interupt your taming. This will give you 10-20 free seconds of taming.

Probably my biggest consderation for taming a pet is its looks! I like the wolves and cats best, and I would probably never choose a crocolisk, even if it had some insane stats. You can check out this site:

To check what pets I can learn new abilities from. I recommend leaving Bite + either growl or cower on auto-cast depending on your situation, while occasionally hitting claw when you feel you have the spare focus. Not all pet''s have Bite and Claw, but they will have at least one, so it shouldn''t be much of a problem. Be careful with leaving Claw on auto-cast though, as it will go through your focus fast.

One last thing to consider for your pet, is their diet. This hasn''t been much of a problem for me, so I don''t pay much attention to it. You can buy food from vendors and stack it in sizes of 20, as well as just feeding your pet random food that you find. I prefer buying my food though, because otherwise I end up with 10 stacks of different food with only 2-8 pieces per stack. Since we lose one bag slot to our quiver/ammo pouch, this space is very precious to me. That aside though, bears are the easiest to feed, since they eat practically everything, with fish eaters in second, and finally meat/plant eaters in last.

Abilities

We have some decent shots, but I find myself constantly conserving my mana.

Arcane Shot: Although arcane shot adds some nice damage, it also costs a large chunk of mana. I prefer to save my mana for mend pet. The times I really use this ability is when I need to try and finish a mob before its heal goes off, or at the very least, get in an extra hit to interrupt it a little more. This shot is instant cast, and can be shot while running, so it is also good for chassing people down. You can also kite a mob with it, by jumping, turning 180 mid air and firing it, then turning another 180 degrees to continue running. You won''t lose any momentum if you do this properly.

Serpent Sting: This is out bread and butter sting. It adds a decent DoT, and so you should almost always use it. Later on you will gain access to other stings, but they are much more situational. The only problem with this sting, and the others, is later on mobs start becoming immune to them.

Scorpid Sting: This will drain some Strength and Agility from a mob. Unfortunately, the reduction doesn''t seem to have much effect on the mob, and so I recommend Serpent Sting over this. Their are some mobs though, that are immune to Serpent, but not Scorpid. For these, you might as well pop this one on them.

Viper Sting: This sting will drain the mobs mana, there are some problems with it though. Against high mana users, it won''t drain the mana fast enough to be of much use. Currently I am fighting Dragonlings or something along those lines, and I will kill them before this finishes draining even half their mana. Because of this, I end up using Serpent Sting on them to kill them even faster. In a large PvP battle things are different though, and you should use this on every player with mana. Also, their are some mobs which have a lot more health then mana, and so this can prove useful, but you will have to experiment on your own to find out which these are.

Multishot: This is an ability that most people overlook. The spell discription says instant, but I don''t think it is, you will end up waiting for your next shot before using it. Still, it has uses. For starters, if your pet has 2 mobs on it, and you want to distribute the aggro, use this ability. Your pet should still hold the one it''s attacking, while the other mob will now get pissed off at you and come running. If you placed a freezing trap before battle, feel free to /tickle it. Later on, it also gets bonus damage to it, and if you are careful with it, you can use it against groups of mobs for a nice damage boost. It''s also decent in group PvP. The only downside is it''s high mana cost.

Scare beast: This one is a no brainer. Have an add that''s a beast and you really don''t want? Just fear it. Be careful though, if fear wears off while it''s in a group with it''s friends, they will join the fight.

Immolation Trap: Decent for adding some extra damage while soloing. Given the heavy restrictions on traps though, it''s not as great in instances.

Freezing Trap: I use this one the most in instances. Keeping one mob out of battle for 10-15-20 secs is nice. There are a few tricks involving feign death that allow you to place two of these at a time. Place first one, and attack your target mob. Once the mob hits the trap, hit feign death, and wait a sec. You should leave combat (assuming the feign wasn''t resisted) and then you will be able to spring back to life and plant another one. Make sure your pet doesn''t attack the mob, or else you won''t leave combat. Also, make sure you don''t put serpent sting or viper sting on the target mob before freezing them, or else it will break the trap as soon as one tic occurs.

Frost Trap: My least favorite trap. Slowing the movement speed of a group of mobs for a few secs, only at the beginning of the battle and not the end, doesn''t seem too useful to me.

Explosive Trap: I don''t use this trap much, since I am not in the mood for having 3 elites aggro me instead of the groups paladin/warrior, but with that asside, it looks like it does some nice damage. I would prefer to just take one of the mobs out of the fight for a bit with a Freezing trap though.

Wing Clip: A nice little snare. As it levels up, it actually starts to do some damage. Sure, the damage is next to nothing, but since it''s instant cast, you might as well spam it if you are in a jam, and are unable to do anything else. Improved Wing Clip talents are also decent, giving each wingclip a 20% chance to immobolize the target for 5 secs.

Mongoose Bite: I don''t like this ability. It''s ok, and it''s actually about equal to raptor strike, but I prefer to Raptor Strike, wing clip, and then run. If for whatever reason I am forced to melee, I will spam this along with Wing Clip and Raptor strike. Make sure you turn on Aspect of the Monkey if you plan on meleeing for more then 1 sec.

Raptor Strike: This is our bread and butter melee attack. It''s not much though, and again, try to get to range so you can do maximum damage.

Counter attack: This is a talent skill. If you go up the survival tree far enough for it, it''s a decent ability. Unfortunately, our parry chance is only 5% or so, and will only be up to 10% with talents, so this will only be available once every ten attacks from the enemy. Still, bonus damage, plus a 100% chance to immobolize for 5 secs is nice, especially for only 1 talent point.

Eagle Eye: An ok ability for scouting, especially if you want to check out an area for a quest item, rather then kill the whole camp and find out it was actually somewhere else. Their are two reasons I don''t completely love it though. You can''t use it indoors, which is a major downer, and it also takes objects a while to appear if you use it to see anywhere past where things are already visible to you. Finally, the radar doesn''t rotate when you look around, so it''s tough to tell what dirrection you are looking in with it. Another thing to remember is you can target where to cast it using the minimap, use this to look over walls/mountains.

Eyes of the Beast: I haven''t used this much. Supposedly your pet has a much smaller aggro radius, and so you can use this for scouting, although I have never tested this myself. I''ll have to log in later and use it with bangalash to see if I still have the ultra fast run speed...

Distracting Shot: Pretty obvious ability. If you need to get a mob off of someone in a hurry, use this. The only problem I have found is my pet usually ends up getting aggro off faster then this using growl, so I don''t use it much.

Disengage: Descent ability when you first get it. Again, not much thought to it, just use it to attempt to remove aggro from yourself. It doesn''t work all too well though at times, and for this reason I recommend:

Feign Death: I love this ability. Having it just for the freezing traps trick is nice enough, but it also beats Disengage IMO. As far as I can tell, it reduces your aggro to near 0, and it costs less then disengage (once disengage reaches lvl 2). Heck, it also works against multiple mobs. As if that wasn''t enough, you can try to use it if you are about to die and fake the mob out. The only downside is it can be resisted, and has a 30 sec cooldown.

Flare: Not one of my favorite abilities (along with track hidden). The AoE is not the biggest, and in general, you need to know where the stealthed mob is to know where to cast it in the first place, so their isn''t much point.

Volley: One of our three AoE damage dealers. It doesn''t do the most damage, and you will probably grab some aggro you don''t want, so I haven''t used it much. I do around 105 DPS with my Crossbow, and so unless I am hitting at least 3 mobs with this at my current level, I might as well just use auto-shot.

I left out a few of our abilities. That''s because I think they are either self explanitory, or I haven''t gotten them yet.

I made two posts on the official forums, so I''ll copy paste them here incase anyone is interested. One is a bit of a rant complaning about things, the other is a comparison of end game bows/guns/crossbows.

Oh yeah, as for gear. I prefer of the Monkey, since that adds +agility and +stamina. I find +spirit to be nearly useless, since it doesn''t add much to regen at all, and agility does everything strength does, and more (for hunters that is). Intellect is a decent mod as well. Don''t bother getting THE best bow for your level, unless you can find it at a really nice price. A very large portion of our damage comes from our agility, Aspect of the Hawk and Hunters Mark (which is why I whine about these in the next post!).

I''ve enjoyed playing my Hunter, but at the same time, I feel a few of our talents and skills are gimped. Here are a few of our talents/skills I think need to be looked at:

Hunters Mark - Aspect of the Hawk -- These two abilities are responsibe for adding a large amount of attack power to our ranged attack. However, I don''t think they add enough, and the talents (improved Aspect of the Hawk, improved Hunters Mark) are also sub par. Why? Well, when compared to other classes skills that add attack power, it''s simply inferior. Warriors have Battleshout, which increases the groups attack power by 185 for 2 mins. Paladins, have Blessing of Might which can be cast on any party member to increase their melee attack power by 186. Us, we get 220 ranged attack power when using both Hunters Mark and Aspect of the Hawk combined, Aspect of the Hawk only applies to us, and Hunters Mark, well, how many other classes main weapons are ranged?

It only gets worse when you factor in talents.

For 5 talent points, a Warrior can increase his Battleshout by 25%, making the total 231 attack power for the group.

For 5 talent points, a paladin can increase Blessing of Might by 20%, making it 223 attack power for any party member.

We have to spend 10 talent points, since our increased attack power is split between two skills, and we only gain 15% for Improved Hunters Mark, making it give 126 attack power, and 20% for Improved Aspect of the Hawk, making it 132, for a total of 258 attack power.

Why are our skills, which only affect us, barely adding more power then skills that affect the whole group? And why are we expected to spend 10 talent points, for significantly less gain then others only having to spend 5? And don''t even get me started on Seal of the Crusader (Fills the Paladin with the spirit of a crusader for 30 sec, granting 180 attack power. The Paladin also attacks 40% faster, but deals less damage with each attack).

Improved Concussive Shot -- Spend 5 talent points to give Concussive Shot a 20% chance to stun for 3 secs. Since it has a 1 in 5 chance of stunning, and has a 12 sec cooldown, it''s pretty much a 3 sec stun every min, at the cost of 5 talent points. Hammer of Justice stuns for 6 secs, has a 1 min cooldown, and it costs 0 talent points to do this. I''m not even going to bother comparing Improved Concussive Shot to Kidney Shot. Needless to say, It would be nice if you increased the chance to stun for Improved Concussive shot.

Ranged Weapon Specialization -- Ok, you might be saying ""wait a minute, this has the same stats as other peoples weapon specialization talents"" and you would be correct, the problem is you forgot to factor in our arrows. Currently, ranged weapon specialization only adds damage based off our bows, so even with 5 talent points in this, while using one of the best bows in the game (Hurricane), we will only gain 1.6 DPS. A bow is basically a two handed weapon, and bows in general do equal damage to a 2 handed weapon, when you factor in arrows/bullets. Since this talent doesn''t factor in our ammo, we are missing out on damage we should be getting. Here''s an example incase I didn''t get the point through:

Massive Longbow (lvl 42) does 22 DPS. Add in lvl 40 arrows, which are 13 DPS, and that brings it up to 35 DPS. When we have 5 points in this talent, it only adds damage based off of the bow damage, giving us only 1.1 DPS more. Compared to a 2 handed Sword of equal lvl:

Battlefield Destroyer (lvl 42) does 36.5 DPS. Someone with 2 handed weapon specialization would gain 1.825 DPS. Ok, so the Battlefield Destroyer does start off with more damage, but even if we had an imaginary lvl 42 sword that did 35 DPS, they would still gain 1.75 DPS compared to our 1.1 DPS.

So please, either buff Ranged Weapon Specialization, or have it factor in our ammo.

Aspect of the Monkey -- This talent adds 1 point of dodge per point spent, up to a total of 3. It''s decent, but it doesn''t make sense when compared to our own dodge, and other classes dodge. I can spend 3 points on Lightning Reflexes which are active all the time or I can spend 3 points on Improved Aspect of the Monkeys but I will only gain the bonus dodge when I have the aspect up. Given this added restriction, it should be a little better then lightning reflexes.

Bestial Discipline -- For 5 talent points you can increase your pet''s focus by 20%, bringing the total from 100 to 120. 20 Extra focus isn''t even enough for 1 extra Claw. Not only that, but it basically only has an effect once per battle. How about you change it to increase the pets focus regen? That way it might actually be useful for both short and long battles.

Bestial Swiftness -- There are a bunch of pet speed bugs, which just make taking this talent a risk, which is a shame because it looked to be one of the more promissing talents.

Pathfinding -- This doesn''t seem to be adding the listed speed bonus.

Improved Revive Pet -- I know a lot of people act like they have some important meeting to go to that will decide the fate of the world whenever you make them wait 4 secs, but still, 2 points just to cut off 4 secs of reviving your pet? How about combining this with Improved Mend Pet?

Ok, so how about you make Deterance increase dodge and parry chance by 25% for 17 secs, 5 mins cooldown, still costs 1 talent point.

Freezing Trap -- This trap is great for early on, but it''s freeze duration doesn''t scale up enough at the end. At lvl 60, it only freezes one mob for 20 secs. Not only is 20 secs pretty low, a lot of mobs seem to break out of it early, even if they aren''t hit. Given the heavy restrictions on trap useage, I think it would be ok to increase it''s duration to 35 secs or so.

I threw together a list of some end game bows/guns/crossbows that interested me. I then compared them to each other to see how they stacked up:

Gorewood

31.8 DPS Base -- 2.50 Speed
+6 Ranged Attack Power from +3 agility, bringing the damage up to 32.4 DPS
+2.8 DPS from a +7 scope, making the total 35.2 DPS

This is a really nice bow IMO. It might not have the highest DPS, but it does have an additional +9 Stamina (90 extra health) and a very slight dodge/crit chance from the +3 agility. The extra +2 strength shouldn''t really interest anyone, but hey, it''s there. This is reward for a level 62 raid quest.

Riphook

30.2 DPS Base -- 2.20 Speed
+22 Ranged Attack Power, bringing the damage up to 32.2 DPS
+3.2 DPS from a +7 scope, giving it a total of 35.4 DPS

Thanks to it''s faster attack speed, this bow just slightly beats the Gorewood in damage when you add a scope. Riphook doesn''t have any other mods though. Obviously the faster attack speed would eat through more arrows too. In the end, I would choose the Gorewood over this bow, but you shouldn''t count this one out. This may be a level 54 bow, but according to Thott this bow is only dropped by Shadow Hunter Vosh''gajin (500+), so it''s not exactly easy to come by.

This is the highest DPS bow their is. It doesn''t have any special mods though, so if you are willing to give up +3 agility, +9 Stamina, +2 Strength and go through arrows like their is no tomorrow, for +1.4 DPS, then go for it. I would rather go with the Gorewood myself, but the level on the Hurricane is only lvl 48, which makes it available sooner. I think they should add a +movement speed bonus to the bow, since you won''t be carrying much money around after buying one of these.

This is the top of the line crossbow, although it doesn''t have much competition from other crossbows. It beats all the bows in DPS, and shoots at half the speed of the Hurricane, helping you conserve your arrows. It has an added mod of +1 Improved chance to hit with ranged weapons. I''m not sure how much this will help, since we don''t miss that much as it is, but it doesn''t hurt either.

The Bows/Guns/Crossbows were all pretty close to each other, but ammo throws everything out of whack, and causes guns to pull ahead. Once hunter reach the level 40 arrows (jagged) their are no more realistic arrows available to them. Doomshot (level 54) is drop only, and it only drops off of Shadow Hunter Vosh''gajin, and so it is not an option.

Guns on the other hand get Mithril Gyro Shot at level 44, and Thorium Shells at level 52. Although these are both pretty expensive, they are very possible. Miniature Cannon Balls are also available at lvl 56, but they are in the same boat as Doomshot, only dropping off of Cannon Master Willey, and so we won''t count them.

When you factor in ammo and arrows, Dwarven Hand Cannon is the clear winner with 55.2 DPS, that''s 10% greater then it''s closest competitor, the Black Crow and its 50.2 DPS.

Personally, I will be going with either a bow or crossbow myself, since I am a NE and don''t think guns mix very well. Hopefully Blizzard will add some arrows past level 40 for us bow users, so we don''t fall behind in DPS compared to those using guns. Oh, one added benefeit is bows are a lot quiter, so you might take a little longer to find in PvP.

Speaking of which, I just rememberd another trick I should have added to the first post. You can shoot through a lot of little hills. In PvP, if you get the jump on someone, try and use a hill to conceal your position, and give you a few more seconds to fire freely. Also, if you get the jump, don''t use hunters mark right away, they can see it and will know they are about to get pummeled. Instead think about opening up with an aimed shot and then putting on hunters mark.

Wow, Tyne, thanks for all the great info. I solo 99% of the time, which gives me a slightly different perspective as a 44 Hunter.

I use a tanking armor/health pet, as having my pet die is the leading indicator that I''m about to bite the big one. Tried high-DPS pets but that never seemed to make much of a difference, aggro-wise.

Have you found that the flying pets are a nightmare for targeting? Mine *always* got in the way of my over-the-shoulder perspective of the battle, making it very difficult to target the mob I''m trying to target. It doesn''t help that the tab-to-target-enemy function seems to be horribly broken for ranged combat. Doesn''t matter if they''re attacking your pet or not - if they''re far enough away, it''ll never focus on them.

Didn''t know about the elite pets getting bonuses; very interesting. I''ll have to try to grab one of them soon. I''ve seen two other elite beasts wandering around (Old Sooty, a bear in Loch Modan and a named elite 55 buzzard in the Badlands). Wonder if they have anything special to offer...

As for your ranged weapon/specialization issues, I have to say that at 44 I feel incredibly powerful as a virtually pure-ranged attacker, able to regularly solo same-level elites, or continually solo same-level non-elites with no downtime whatsoever (even frickin'' immune-to-all-stings elementals).

The only annoying bug that I''ve noticed is that Improved Scorpid Sting never seems to take off more than a point of STA, which contrasts strongly to the promised 10% per strength reduced/per talent point. Not worth a respec to get back the talent point I wasted on it, but still annoying. Well, that and the occasional annoying pet-wandering-all-over-the-place-aggroing-everything-oh-crap-I''m-dead pathfinding issue.

Hunters Mark - Aspect of the Hawk -- These two abilities are responsibe for adding a large amount of attack power to our ranged attack. However, I don''t think they add enough, and the talents (improved Aspect of the Hawk, improved Hunters Mark) are also sub par. Why? Well, when compared to other classes skills that add attack power, it''s simply inferior. Warriors have Battleshout, which increases the groups attack power by 185 for 2 mins. Paladins, have Blessing of Might which can be cast on any party member to increase their melee attack power by 186. Us, we get 220 ranged attack power when using both Hunters Mark and Aspect of the Hawk combined, Aspect of the Hawk only applies to us, and Hunters Mark, well, how many other classes main weapons are ranged?

Why wouldnt they be inferior? You need to balance the fact that Hunters have a full time pet with at level 60 probably 4000hps 55-60dps and 3600 AC. I''m pretty sure last time I checked Warriors and Paladins and other melee classes didnt have that.

Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarterDelivering Truth while the 10% deliver lies.